May 15, 2008

Today’s launch includes paging for shrines. Some shrines have had hundreds of candles placed in them and this has led to large pages too large to be appreciated. I’ve programmed arrow keys to appear on shrines with more than eight candles. I may move this number up over time. You can see an example of the arrows at work on the play shrine. Let me know what you think.

Also, some of you may have noticed a change in shrine advertising (for shrines that have ads on them, that is). I’ve placed a block of text ads at the bottom of each page instead of ads at the top. I’ve also enabled a per-session ad-free option for all visitors and all shrines. If a visitor clicks on the “Remove Ads From This Shrine” button (for those shrines that don’t have this button disabled), ads will be removed for that visitor for 20 minutes. I am experimenting with different advertising services, so please let me know if you see any offensive ads or malfunctions with your shrines. Thanks.

In response to the horrible earthquake in China, I created The Sichuan Earthquake Shrine and removed the ads from it. I was hoping to find some correctly formatted ads from the Red Cross or other emergency assistance groups, but failed. I’ll keep looking.

May 1, 2008

I’m pleased to announce the availability of premium ad-free service for all shrines. I’ve set up a sample ad free shrine to show what it looks like. As you can see, not only are the ads removed, but also much of the nshrine.com-related navigation.

This of course comes with a small fee. Prices can be seen on the example shrine page. For a limited time, owners of shrines created before April 24th 2008 can get some free ad free time for their shrines. Click on the shrine’s “Make This Shrine Ad” button to learn more.

More features will be added to the “ad free” premium mode as time goes on. Keep the suggestions and feedback coming! Email artwells@nshrine.com.

March 30, 2008

Though not entirely related to nshrine’s development, I thought it might be of interest. I’ve released a google gadget based on wingmail from the artwells oracula. I published it with a “provided by nshrine.com” statement, and I’m going to re-use a lot of the code for a nshrine.com gadget coming soon, so I suppose there is some relevance.

You can add the gadget to your web pages here, or you can use the link below the gadget to add it to your goog homepage.

March 26, 2008

The growth of nshrine.com is steady and appropriate. I’m feeling almost ready for a publicity push, but still have a few things on the GottaDo list to check off. Links to individual shrines are spreading throughout myspace, livejournal and various special interest forums at a manageable rate, and that’s a pleasure to see. Many shrines are being visited and cared for daily. The intentions of the site are being fulfilled.

One feature launched today is a tool to recover and change passwords. Now there is a “Forgot Your Password?” link on the Log In page. Also on each users’ profile page, there is a password change form. Passwords can be changed at any time.

March 20, 2008

I’ve created a new page displaying the latest candles and linking them to their place in their shrines. Hopefully this will help people familiarize themselves with the many thoughts and prayers folks have when they place candles.

The shrines so far have been on the average more serious than the oracula’s old shrines. I don’t think that is a better or worse culture for a group of shrines. It does seem that my efforts are being well appreciated. Still, it would be nice to see a bit more play. It will come.

I fiddled with the homepage to hopefully make it more compelling. I still have a ton of design issues to tackle, and a lot of good input to be inspired by, but if you have any, definitely let me know.

March 16, 2008

A “Share” button will now appear in each of member’s shrine (when they are logged in). It will also appear amond “Edit” and “Delete” on their profile pages (again, when they are logged in). On it there’re ways to email and otherwise publicize the shrine, include a badge for profile pages on other sites. I’ve got many more ideas, including using OpenSocial and site specific APIs from other sites. Stay tuned.

Also, nshrine.com now holds over 500 candles burning. This will be a laughably small number soon, but for now it’s a landmark.

March 14, 2008

By popular request, shrines can now be set to Friends Only. This is to support groups that wish to share a shrine for common expression, but are concerned about the possibility of others’ possible contribution.

By becoming friends, two or more people can become the only people allowed to enter candles into a shrine. In order to become friends of a shrine maintainer, simply log in, go to the shrine you’d like to share, click the maintainer name at the bottom, and click on the link to befriend the maintainer on their profile page. The maintainer will receive an email telling them that you’ve befriended them with a link to your profile. Once they follow that link and befriended you, you can share shrines set to Friends Only.

March 9, 2008

I’ve chaged the color of the framing on the shrines in order to better support the site’s design. I’m willing to change it back if there are any huge objections. Ad-free service (and paid) service will be available soon for those who are interested.

Also, I’ve changed the profiles even more to make them a bit less cluttered and to make space for more options.

March 5, 2008

I started doing some design changes based on some fantastic advice. There are many to go, so if you see something change a bit, don’t panic. If you see something you hate, complain to me.

I also endowed the profile pages with some more structure to make room for the rich future ahead. No new functionality at this point, but watch this space.

I’ve also begun a facebook application. It’s always been part of the plan, and the successes so far have prodded me to look into it even more, and besides, everyone is making one. I was surprised in looking into it how well the nshrine services might fit in with regular facebook usages. At any rate, again, watch this space.